Graduation from High School
I graduated from Bowie High School in 1988. Not crazy about the outfit - it was all white, and I looked like a parade float with a little square hat.
I thought at the time (at least in my mind) that some great mystical change would come over me at the moment of graduation. Some sort of flush of success, or relief, or something, would happen.
When the time came, I felt disappointed. It was a long meeting, lost in a crowd of people I mostly didn't know or care about. Some people talked. It was fun to watch my friends walk across the stage, but terrifying when my time came. Took great care not to stumble, or look around at anyone, and I wished I was a parade float that could just disappear.
The photo they tried to sell me looked terrible, but my family took a few photos afterwards that didn't look bad. My friend Andy gave me a rose, which I kept in my current journal. I still have it today.
Within a few weeks, I took off in my friend Toni's car, packed to the rafters, to move to New York City, never to return...or so I thought at the time.
Graduation from Community College
Getting my bachelor's degree proved more challenging. When I returned from New York six months later and deeply in debt, I thought I would go get a job, which I easily did.
What I didn't realize at the time was how difficult it would be to go back to school to finish my bachelor's degree, and how badly I would need one.
The local colleges weren't on the train or bus lines yet, and I had no car. Neither could I afford one. I worked full-time, and there was no 'online' anything at the time - nothing that I could afford. Tuition was way, way out of reach, no matter where I went.
I moved to Washington State, but still the conditions weren't right. It wasn't right until I married, and we ended up in Texas, that my golden opportunity came. Tuition in Texas was incredibly cheap, by comparison with Maryland or Washington State, and online school was just starting to become an acceptable option. It was doable, but we were so broke at the same time, trying to support three four small children on one salary, I despaired of ever being able to do it.
I would find excuses to drive by the local community college, wondering how do I get in? How do I figure out how to do this? I was obsessed about it.
And then, on one trip, I got in a fender-bender. My fault. Again, one that I couldn't afford to pay for.
And hubby and I had an argument over something a few days later...whatever, I can't remember what it was about. Probably money. So long ago.
I only remember that, somewhere during that argument, he said I was 'a stupid woman'.
That one sentence...it made me so stinkin' mad! That anyone would DARE say that to me!
That one sentence got both me (and him!) through our associates' degrees.
I wouldn't stop until I figured it out and made him eat those words (which he gladly did, later), and when he saw me doing it, he signed up himself. We took classes together, and helped each other with our homework. And we both graduated in 2011.
Children's Graduations
After that, we tried again to enroll in college. I even got a position working at a university, where I could take classes for free, if I wanted to. But then our kids needed our attention with the issues they were going through, and we couldn't take time away from them without risking our family's mental and emotional health.
So Sam and I both put our own ambitions on slow burn, in order to help the fledglings get out of the nest.
We watched my oldest boy David graduate with his associates' degree...and then my oldest daughter Aubrey get hers. Those were much more thrilling than my own graduations were, by far!
Our youngest girl Ashley graduates from high school this year, and so we're currently raising three college students and a high school student. Busy, busy. We're killing a lot of trees this year.
Future Graduations
And we're not done yet. David has one more year to go before he graduates college. My youngest has two more years before he's done with high school.
About that time, we're planning to find a way back to school ourselves. I've got at least a master's degree in me in something, and Sam's aiming for a doctorate plus professional certifications in order to become the therapist he's always dreamed of becoming.
Lots of work yet to do, before the final graduation day. Miles to go, before we sleep. :-)
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